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Saturday, October 13, 2012

Radical

The radical is that unique person who actually believes what he
says. He is that person to whom the common good is the greatest personal value.
He is that person who genuinely and completely believes in humankind. The
radical is so completely identified with humankind that he personally shares
the pain, the injustices, and the sufferings of all his fellow humans. For the
radical, the bell tolls unceasingly, and every man's struggle is his fight.

21 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Two of Obama's mentors were Communist Frank Davis and hard core Socialist Saul Alinsky. Neither stressed American values, but taught the opposite--that America with its free enterprise, God worshipping system is the enemy of the people.

Saul Alinsky taught that the key to weaken America, to take over the system and its economy was to "destroy the middle class." He believed that "wealth redistribution," taking from those who work and giving it to those who don't, is the catalyst to bring down the U.S. economy and free-market capitalism. After 4 years in office, Obama is well on his way of doing just that.

It should be noted that both Obama and Hillary Clinton are disciples of Saul Alinsky.

Alinsky taught that the key to destroying the middle class is to create a failed economy that destroys private sector jobs which leads to a powerless, but growing subset of laid off workers who become reliant on and controlled by the government. It is Alinsky's dream come to life at the distructive hands of Barack Obama, President of the United States.

For Alinsky, the means didn't matter, destroy whatever gets in your way. He made it clear that what his followers want is POWER.

Before Obama took on his job as a community organizer, he was intensly trained in the Alinsky method. In turn, he trained other organizers in the Alinsky agitation tatics. Obama also taught Alinsky's "Power Analysis" methods at the University of Chicago.

The one Alinsky constant learned by the Obama administration is deception. Now as the election is at hand, it attempts a full-blown cover-up from Benghazi-gate to fake unemployment stats to deflecting its own deceit by accusing its opponent of lying--a trait that the radical Democrats and their leader have mastered exceedingly well. While professing to "care for the middle class," Obama's answer to lift the middle class out of its current slide into poverty is to deluge Americans with hidden taxes attached to Obamacare, send gasoline and fuel costs soaring by denying drilling permits and clean coal and printing a flood of devalued dollars that create inflated costs on food, clothing and American households. Obama has left 5.5 million women unemployed. In the Socialist power-play, Black Americans are collateral damage. According to the Chicago Tribune, failed economic policies have wiped out the gains made by Blacks in the last 30 years.

So, LJ,when you quote this godless radical, pardon me if it doesn't sit so well with me.

One difference between me and you is that I will actually read leftist material, but when I mention the National Review you dismiss it. There are many interesting quotes in "Rules for Radicals." One of the most interesting is "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." That sounds like something Jesus would say. You seem so bent toward the left that you are not even open to conservative writers and thinkers. I still think you are a good man, but I do not believe in the long run your leftist views are good for the country. If Alinsky is so impressive then why does Obama seem to go out of his way to distance himself from him.

Anon 10:50 let me give you just one concrete example of how my own middle class taxes have gone up under Obama. My wife and I both have health issues that cost us thousands of dollars a year in copays alone. Last year I was able to take advantage of a $5,000 medical savings benefit. We always spend more than that amount so the break really helped out. This year the amount has been cut in half. There you go, one concrete example of a middle-class tax increase.

Anon 9:38, thanks for your comment! It took me quite a while to stop laughing!

A word of explanation: I find it so interesting how readers here who comment rush to interpret the words I post, especially when I quote someone as in this case. What about what is written on the page? Some of these comments would imply that if a person is sold out and engaged in justice work among the powerless the certain, quickly approaching consequence is that someone or some groups will be executed! What Alinsky says in the quote is true. That's all. Maybe I was dropped on my head as an infant. But whatever happened to me, I can see people suffering daily while in the midst of giving it their best effort.

Larry, what you don't seem to understand is that it does matter who you quote no matter how truthful a particular quote might be. I am sure that there is some statement out there that Hitler made that is true, but would you quote him? You might try to post a few more videos of your grandson. That was great, and helped my blood stop boiling. Quoting Alinsky, in my opinion, was a big mistake because like it our not when you start quoting a person like him people are left wondering if you are on his team. One other point. If you thought his quote was just so good that it needed to be posted why not add a simple little disclaimer before the quote. Most people who did not endorse him would have done that. If you quoted a white segregationist from the 60s do you think for one moment that you would have not included a disclaimer?

Anon 2:40, Alinsky's work inspired low income, basically powerless persons to join together to work for better communities, lives, jobs/wages and opportunities. Most who are offended by his work resist out of individual self-interest and not because of some deep concern for the good of the whole community/state/nation. In Dallas we have Dallas Area Interfaith working in this way to educate, mobilize and organize poor people out of faith communities to take responsibility for creating better lives, options, and communities. People like you don't object when the rich coordinate and organize. Why then the poor?

I know little about Alinsky and will neither defend nor attack him. But Anon 10:50, you sound just as distorted on the right as you depict Alinsky being on the left. Suggesting that Obama is out to purpposely destroy this country and talk of "fake unemployment stats" tells me all I need to know about how extreme your own perspective is. Makes me guess Alinsky is not as bad as you say.

Comparing Alinsky (or almost anyone) to Hitler for any purpose is grossly distorting and nothing but extremist rhetoric. Alinsky advocated extreme ideas, not mass murder. And his ideas were no more extreme than, say, Ayn Rand, just on a different part of the political spectrum. I am guessing you would find it far fetched to compare Ayn Rand to Hitler for any purpose. Comparing Alinsky is no different.

Anon 3:36, what does your church do, actually do to benefit the poor, now that you've written Larry's group off? Your use of word charitable seems to tip us off to the approach your church employs. Help vs empowerment in contrast to battling for change and equal opportunity.

The fact that you know little about Alinsky when it is so easy to do a little research tells me a lot about you.

As to the unemployment stats, the people who have given up looking for jobs are not counted, if they were the unemployment rate would be doubled. In last weeks stats, showing the first time filers for unemployment, the state of California was left completely out.

Obama thinks this country has been far to rich compared to the rest of the world and he is out to bring us down a few notches.

Just for a minute look at the people who shaped Obama's thinking. His mother was a kind of Third-world oriented leftist. He didn't have a father so he sought out surrogate fathers who could teach him, if you will, chapter and verse of his father's Third world anti-American ideology. There was Frank Marshall Davis, the communist in Hawaii. There was Edward Said, the Palestanian radical at Columbia. There was Robert Mangabeira Unger at Harvard Law School. We know about Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.

Roberto Unger has called for an alliance of Russia, China, India and Brazil to, as he puts it, gang up on the United States. He says that America;s being No, 1 is bad for the world, and all those other countries need to make a single team and overthrow the United States from being #1, and this he thinks is a good thing. Obama took a number of courses from Unger at Harvard, and the two stayed in close, although secretive, contact for years--until the 2008 Presidential campaign. When Unger's name surfaced, he disappeared, and later told David Remnick, Obama's biographer, that he's a leftist and a revolutionary, and he didn't want his connections with Obama to be exposed because it would hurt Obama.

These are the guys Obama hung out with, and these are the guys whose ideology helped to grame Obama's mind.

Two things are going on--Obama has never been vetted but when damaging information about him surfaces, the mainstream media tries to block or surppress it. They do this either by denying the facts or trying to discredit the messenger.

Even among Republicans there is a tendency to fit Obama in American history, but in doing that, one can miss Obama's own history. He is not some civil rights guy who's sort of gone off the rails. He is a global guy who sees America from the outside. Obama doesn't mind if Americans suffer, because he's redistributing income away from America to the rest of the world.

By the way, Obama is not a Muslim. His parents were both atheists, his step-father was an atheist. He was raised without religion. He kind of found Christianity but it is not mainstream Christianity. It is Third World liberation theology, the kind subscribed to by some guerillas in Latin America and also by Jeremiah Wright.What appealed to Obama about Jeremiah Wright? It was the phrase, and all it embodies, "God damm America." It means America, not Iran or North Korea is the rough nation in the world. We are the bad guys, and that is the key to Third World liberation theology. It sees Christ as a kind of guerilla revolutionary fighting to overthrow, if you will, the captialists, the imperial powers that be.

So let us hope and pray that Obama is defeated. The survival of our country depends on it.

I knew the moment I used Hitler as a reference point that was a mistake. He is in a league all his own. My point was simply that it does matter who you quote. If I am quoting someone for whom I have strong differences I would note that before the quote. I think Ayn Ryan is a great example. She has some great quotes out there, but if I used one I would begin with a disclaimer. Sorry about the Hitler reference. That was way over the top. Larry when you quote Alinsky and offer no disclaimer you make people wonder.

ANON 6:05 My church uses its offerings and tithes by giving a substantial part to Christian charities. If you look at the financials for LJ's organization you will note very little contribution to it from churches. - the reason - no gospel message, far left politics including Saul Alinsky's teaching, an emphasis on the socialist based Liberation Theology, Jim Wallis and his lefty Sojourners. Every once in a while LJ comes out of the closet with his leftist political philosophy, just as his man Gerald Britt does. Regards, Anon 3:38

"My church uses its offerings and tithes by giving a substantial part to Christian charities."

I'm curious: how much? Studies have found that, on average, churches use 2-3% of their budgets to benefit people outside their own walls in practical ways, such as food and clothing. 2-3%! The church tells its members to tither, and does not even give a tithe of its income to the poor. No wonder not much of Larry's budget comes from churches.

I simply cannot match up the Obama I see in the Whitehouse to the Obama you describe. You can disagree with his policies, but no reputable economist believes he is so off course as to suggest he is intentionally sabotaging America. Saying things like "Obama doesn't mind if Americans suffer, because he's redistributing income away from America to the rest of the world" is just crazy talk. It's no different than the left saying Bush was a fascist who would soon have jack booted thugs in our living rooms. All just crazy talk from extremists. And if you believe the crazy talk ... I'm sorry, the world must look pretty bleak.

Thank you both, Anon 1:08 and 1:35 for your reasoned voices. What you state is so obvious to those of us on the ground in the ghetto. But it is so hard to open any crack in the Rush-inspired propaganda assaults. To be radical is not to be violent or mercenary, to the contrary, it is to simply be "all in" for the vision of a truly "beloved community."

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